The dim ceiling filled up the sky, though I couldn’t remember opening my eyes. It was like I’d just been transported here in an instant. The night felt hazy and dreamlike. For a second I was so disoriented I couldn’t even figure out where I was or what day it was.

The clock said 6.48 AM. The bedroom was no longer dark, but fuzzy gray.

It hurt. Everything. All over.

Muscles were tight and stiff like hardened clay. I pointed my feet out and made a pained gasp as my legs stretched like brittle wood boards, like I’d never stretched them before in my life. The motion triggered a cramp beneath my ribcage. And – ouch – the skin was so tender. Felt like bruising down there. The friction of inflamed muscles rubbing together felt like sandpaper.

Pulling my legs in again, I went still in a fetal position.

Blood was smacking through my head like I’d been struck with a block of wood. Giddy nausea rolled up my insides but held back at the last second.

“Uuunnggghh…”

I groaned, laggy from sleep loss, wondering if it really was morning. It didn’t feel like a new day, but like I’d gone back in time one day, not forward, as if jet-lagged from crossing a time zone.

Unrested by the shallow catnaps I’d managed to catch throughout the night, my brain craved long, deep, uninterrupted sleep. And my heart needed rest; fluttering at off-beats like a startled bird.

Next to me, a deep, low, purring sigh, completely uninhibited; not yet fully emerged from an enviously deep restfulness, at least far more than I felt. The mattress rocked and a depression built up on my side, tilting me towards the center. Even this shallow motion shook me with another flow and ebb of nausea.

The mattress groaned. Then, after a long outpouring of hot stale air pushed against the back of my head, a sedate, throaty rumble just behind my right ear:

“HELLO DOWN THERE, HANDSOME...”

Her voice slurred like she was still half asleep. Then, a pair of pillowy lips pressed clumsily against my shoulder in a kiss that applied too much of the weight of her head, driving me down beneath it, flattening me against the mattress for an instant.

As the weight relaxed again, her head settled right next to me, radiating my back in warm breath. A couple of fingertips swept over my legs and began probing around an erection I didn’t even realize I’d had. I shifted restlessly. Like her kiss, her touch was sleepy; heavy and unfocused, my dick getting half squashed and stretched as the digits roamed around over it.

“HOW DID YOU SLEEP?” she mumbled, then paused as she examined my motionless body from beneath bleary, half-lidded eyes, “…DID YOU SLEEP?”

“Doesn’t feel like it…” I said, absent-mindedly rubbing my pec, which still stung a little.

“HMM…” she said distractedly. And then a moist sound. A moment later, a wet, sticky pressure and soft digging feeling against my cheek as it was brushed by a saliva-stained fingertip, gently scratching to wipe away some mark. It turned out to be some bed lint pasted to my cheek by dried female ejaculate, which she flicked from her finger with disinterest.

Then her breath returned in great warm flaps as she moved in close at the back of my head.

“IN THAT CASE…” her sleep-heavy words halting, “…YOU MAY HAVE ALL THE SLEEP IN THE WORLD. BUT FIRST…” her conspiratorial whisper thrummed in my ear: “…LET’S SEE IF YOU CAN MAKE ME CLIMAX BEFORE THE SUN RISES…”

Before I could react, my ankles were snatched together and I was already being dragged down along the mattress on my belly, the ceiling covered by the blanket as I was sucked down into the stuffy depths of the bed. Her enormous body shifted around in the dark, radiating intense warmth on every side, positioning itself to receive me. The masses of her legs lifted and parted – I only knew this because the displacement of air created a cool breeze on my face that tricked me into thinking it was fresher down here than it actually was.

My chest was pincered in by blundering digits, clumsy with impatience and recent slumber, lifting me off the mattress, rotating through the cool early morning air, but this time, angling me around for insertion. In the past when we’d done penetration, she ensured I went in legs first, for my comfort. But now my body was turned the wrong way, with my feet facing away from her slit. It wasn’t clear she was aware of it; she was so drowsy maybe she thought I was the other way around. My legs paddled uselessly for a second.

Then the puffy lips were sucking moistly on my face as the crown of my head was slipping past the smooth rim of her vagina. The tunnel walls pulled in, cradling and gripping, conveying my body further and further with satisfied scrunching motions, as if sucking me up through a straw, whilst washing me up and down in its warm fluids.

My arms were pressed against my sides, severely restricting my ability to struggle. The tunnel walls had my thighs pinned together, I tried to kick my feet but could only roll my hips.

Fingers pushed against my buttocks – maybe confusing it for the top of my head – with a wet slurp I disappeared inside her until just my feet stuck out. Another battering shove, this time against the soles of my feet drove me inside her completely.

The hips flexed as the vagina grew tighter, clenching my shoulders, but the passage was drier and even through the pressure, I held in position. Fingertips entered past the slit and poked at the soles of my feet again, the slippery walls caressed my cheeks as my head budged along, jamming up even deeper into the stale dark.

And then, further along, something strange happened. The interval between contractions lengthened, and each contraction was dampened, until the motions dulled to faint twitching, and then, cessation of motion.

“Uh...Hello…?” I murmured in the dark, feeling kind of cartoonish, but I didn’t know what else to say. It was like she’d changed her mind, but the tapering off of her arousal was too gradual; like she’d changed her mind in stages, which didn’t make sense.

There was a rocking sensation and I was bodily turned along with her as she rolled over onto her side.  The flesh walls clamped in, at first gradually, then by alarming increments, a little more and a little more, and in mere seconds becoming an intolerable vice, the inside of a constricting python. Her whole body was relaxing, and as the muscular weight of her hips and rump slackened, they closed the tunnel inwards.

My body sagged in sheer disbelief, like a deflated balloon, as the realization clicked: this final attempted orgasm had done it: she’d been tired out. She was falling asleep – if she wasn’t basically asleep already.

By some tiny mercy, there was an air pocket trapped in the tunnel, and with my tiny lungs needing less oxygen, it could probably provide sustenance for a little while longer, before I had to start drawing on the eight minute window, or however left I had to hold my breath. I gulped the sour, sweaty air down like it was magical elixir.

Now consciousness wavered in and out in snatches; made incoherent by the pitch black. Moments ran together timelessly, or split into disjointed snatches of sudden alertness, then blanks of micro amnesia. It wasn’t certain from moment to moment whether I was awake, or how much time had passed. A cramp pulled in my chest, as my head was floating one second, panging with a headache the next.

Awareness dissolved into black…

Then sensations were back; her slowed heartbeat sending its subwoofer through the length of the tunnel, each pulse making my cramped muscles twinge painfully, the musky invasion of sweltering air, a headache like my skull had been snapped up in a mousetrap. I made one last attempt to cry out; but heard no noise, my ears were filled with static.

Then blackness again…

*

Still pitch black.

How was that possible? Something in my brain sensed it should be morning. But I had no real idea.

My heartbeat sounded in my ears. A rubbery skin-tight tube, warm as an oven, pressed against me from every angle, soaking me in pungent musky slime sweating down the faintly pulsating walls.

“Help…” I croaked. My voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a deep well.

There was no response. It was like having wandered in the desert; I was hopelessly confused, a thundering headache and thoughts spinning on the brink of delirium. Couldn’t remember five minutes ago let alone how I got here, where ‘here’ was.

There was a disorienting revolving feeling, like motion through space. Then pounding bumps gripped my body over and over – a shuddering walking motion. The shuddering stopped with a dropping sensation before all movement jolted to a halt.

A strange feeling started at my head and raced down my feet. It was a distinct feeling of pressure, like someone poking their finger (not normal sized, but proportionate to me) into the top of my head, and drawing a line rapidly down my body: down my forehead, right between my eyes, over my lips and chin, then down the center of my chest, belly, along my shaft. The moment it hit my feet, a sound broke out, muffled, the soft pattering of a hose stream hitting the inside of a bucket.

Realizing what it was, my mouth scrunched. Jennifer must have gotten up to use the bathroom. She was now sitting on the toilet, with me still inside her pussy. Inflated with containment, her vagina pushed out against her urethra, which was right next door. The front of my body pushed out against the urethra so much that, as the pee ran down, I could feel the neighboring tube firm up, pushing back against me, as it inflated with pee.

She uttered a throaty sound that made my dick twitch. It wasn’t just a sound of relief, it was vaguely sexual. Whether she knew it or not, my captivity seemed to be giving her stream an unusual, sensual feeling.

All I could do was wait it out. But with all the wine and rum she'd ingested the previous night, this took an extended moment. The muffled spraying sound played for what seemed like a long time, with the pressure of her ‘tiny waterslide’ digging along the center line of my body the entire time, and the warmth of the pee radiating through the dividing membrane, making me sweat. Meanwhile her pulse thrilled up and down my body with a happy, relaxed cadence. I willed myself to remain silent and still. However, the warm pressure of her stream pulsating right down my shaft was making my groin tighten up.

Finally the pressure running down my body subsided, and the stream sound dwindled to drips, and then nothing. But it was not over.

There was a muted sound like crinkling plastic wrapper, and the vaginal tunnel tensed below my feet, seeming to pull apart. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, she was pulling me out.

Right then some blunt object came ramming up into the soles of my feet, smacking at them, too imprecise to be fingertips searching for my ankles.

“Hey…!” I cried, trying to squirm, but the rubbery walls were so thick and my body so fatigued, it didn’t do any good; I couldn’t move an inch.

The object stopped for a second, then came back, smashing into my feet again, and this time the force spread my legs, and swept them against one side of the slimy tunnel, allowing the object to blunder into my nuts, and make a forceful nudging motion, as if trying to grind them up like a pestle.

The floor of my stomach seemed to shake apart and collapse; I wheezed in pain as the object clumsily probed around my butt before retreating.

Now it seemed to have gone for good. A ragged gasp escaped my chest. My nuts still rang with pain but I was just glad they hadn’t been demolished. Through a dim haze, it occurred to me that I was trapped inside her pussy, but I couldn’t figure out what was attacking me. It was roughly the shape of a slender finger, but it couldn’t be, it was too rigid, and too small to be a dildo.

The tube seemed tighter all of a sudden, the musk choking up my lungs as I was forced to rely on it for oxygen, while the poor air quality kept me dizzy and stupid. It struck me only with concerted thought: the object must have been a tampon. That confirmed it: she didn’t know I was in here.

Wow… I thought, my nerves firing, close call. If she’d managed to insert it, it would have sealed me inside her like corked up wine.

During this time, a minute must have passed. Maybe the sense of relief was premature: I still needed to get out of here first.

Then the blunt object came back with a vengeance, smacking into me from below like a bowling ball, and now startlingly cold: the tip covered in slippery gel to ease its passage.

“No…!” I screamed, trying to flex my shoulders and rely on torso strength to shift around, seeing as my hands were pinned to my sides. “I’m in here!”

My voice was drowned out by a much louder, deeper sound: a husky feminine voice that came from the other side of the tunnel, groggy and half slurring with sleep.

"UGH, DAMMIT…”

Even at a mutter her voice muted my pitiful, muffled screams.

The tapered tip of the tampon continued to batter at me, sliding up my legs, sweeping them out of the way until they were plastered against one side of the tunnel, and then knocking away against my butt repeatedly with the force of a bludgeon. The ribbed shaft was thinly lined with lubricant, which was smeared over my legs and around my butt, and then as my butt cheeks were pushed apart, the cold gel ran up my crack.

It seemed I was even more flexible than I realized. One more battering blow into my butt cheeks and the pointed tip parted my anal passage and sunk in deep. There was a sickening plunging as the tampon raced upward, swelling up everything in its path as it went, before hitting some internal barrier and stopping.

The resulting intolerable pressure had my entire genital area weighing a ton, my anal sphincter felt like it had been attacked by wasps – it must have torn.

As if sensing something was wrong, the tampon now decided to make a retreat again. There was a small pulling feeling around my butt – I grimaced in despair – as she wound the string tight around her finger and tugged. But the tampon didn’t budge.

She tried again; pulling harder. There was a weird, nauseating feeling like my insides were stretching down. I was gritting my teeth so hard my gums hurt.

But the tampon still didn’t move. She gave a deep sigh of irritation.

“SHIT…” she murmured under her breath, then, after winding the string more tightly, it was given one almighty yank.

A scream tore from my lips as it felt like a fist buried inside my stomach was trying to punch down through my bowels. Then my body slipped, shot down and, with a wet pop, emerged into the cold air, spinning upside down on the end of the tampon string.

The inside of the toilet bowl encircled the horizon as I dangled helplessly between spread thighs, before rising above them, up under the notice of a pair of green eyes which stared down at me in horror.

“OH, FUCK—!”

There was an upward jolt, the walls of the bathroom rapidly rotated into view, then I was lowered, my head bumping a towel, with rest of me following, angling down until I was in a lying position, the terry cloth pressing against my cheek. Then the corners of the towel lifted on either side of me, taking me up into the air like a giant hammock as she carried it out of the bathroom.

A moment later, a hard surface pressed up beneath me as the towel was spread over the coffee table

Her massive form loomed over me to inspect the damage. The fingers of one hand slid around my lower belly, which was distended and rock hard. Starting at my lower ribs, the thumb made a series of palpating thrusts towards my groin, trying to coax the head of the tampon back down my chute. When that didn’t work, I was gently rolled onto my front while her thumb repeated the process down my spine to my tailbone. Then the thumb and fingertips moved to either side of my belly and began to pinch inwards, and roll back and forth over my cramping abdomen. Already unbearably firm, every squeeze made me feel like a car being compacted between hydraulic plates.

The fingers of the other hand captured the string and began to tug gently, until my insides were searing with pain.

“Stop!” I cried, gripping the towel so hard my knuckles were white. “Stop!”

“I KNOW IT HURTS,” she soothed, “BUT WE’RE GOING TO FIX THIS, OKAY?” 

She jumped up again and strode out of the room.

“I NEED SOME TONGS…” she muttered, more to herself.

“No…” I uttered weakly, not knowing what I was in for except that it would occasion more horrendous suffering.

When she returned she didn’t have tongs, or any other medieval tools, but she had washed her hands and put on some clothes.

“WE’RE GOING TO THE VET,” she said, collecting her car keys.

“No!” I wailed.

The corners of the towel rose up, carrying me up into the air again in a giant sling. I curled my fists into the cloth, burying my face against it as I was conveyed through the house, out the front door and into the car, finally coming down to rest again on the passenger seat.

The car rolled out of the driveway, and shivers wracked my frame, running through the car upholstery, up through the tires, and churning my tender insides. Over the car engine, bubbling cries of pain issued from my lips, and over that, her repeated utterances of assurance.

The stiff bulk stopping up my internal cavity was putting pressure on my organs, which were in turn pushing against my lungs. Air raced thinly in and out of my chest, but not enough to fight against a growing dizzy spell that had my vision going dark.

*

The neighborhood dogs had gone crazy; yipping and barking at some unseen stimulus. I was lying in bed, wrapped up in sheets.

The dogs kept baying; so loud like they were up against the bedroom window. Animal nails raked at hard surfaces.

“Keep it down, I’m trying to sleep!” I groaned, rolling over.

The dogs went quiet for a millisecond, and then started up again.

“Jen…” I grumbled, “…could you please close the window…?”

A cat yowled.

My eyes cracked open. The comforting master bedroom walls were nowhere to be seen, and it wasn’t the queen bed mattress below, but the folds of a towel on a hard surface. Wrapped around my middle were not sheets but gauze bandages, all around my torso and over my butt, and beneath them I was naked. The smell of iodine antiseptic filled the enclosure, and when I coughed, an ache ripped up my stomach.

A shadowy room enclosed me – and strangely small, or, as big as a normal sized room compared to me. Even more strange, one wall was a barred gate. A prison cell?

It seemed like the setting for a surreal nightmare, but I was too alert to be dreaming.

The dogs quietened, listening. There were noises coming into earshot, and getting closer: the padding sounds of huge feet stepping linoleum. The noises tapped over the floor towards my box.

Like a light switching off, the bright wall out beyond the barred gate went dim as something huge passed by it and stopped. The massive form cast me in darkness.

My eyes narrowed and focused. It was the face of a young woman. The vet.

She clicked her tongue at me as if I was just another pet in a cage, and getting my attention, she then grinned.

“NOW, THERE’S A FAMILIAR FACE,” she cooed in at me. “SEEMS BIGGER THAN LAST TIME WE CAUGHT UP. NOT A LITTLE SPRINKLE ANYMORE – MORE LIKE THE FULL CUPCAKE. BUT JUST AS CUTE!” 

“W-what happened?” I mumbled.

“SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAD A WILD NIGHT,” she exclaimed. “YOUR PARTNER SAID IT WAS A BACHELOR PARTY STUNT GONE WRONG. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOUR BUDDIES WERE TRYING TO PROVE, BUT THEY MANAGED TO STUFF YOU LIKE A FAT LITTLE TURKEY. I HAD TO SNIP YOUR BELLY OPEN TO POKE AWAY AT THE STUFFING SO I COULD SEND IT BACK OUT THE WAY IT CAME.”

My head dropped back against the towel in disbelief, while a giant hand wearing a blue surgical glove shaded me as it went to flip the spring lock and the barred door gave a tiny squeal as it was rotated outwards to allow the hand to enter.

“AND THE ENTIRE TIME I WAS WORKING AWAY ON THE OPERATING TABLE, GUESS WHO WAS POKING UP PROUDLY?” Her gloved forefinger gave the head of my penis a tap. “THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO NEED TO STICK A CLAMP ON IT TO KEEP IT OUT OF THE WAY,” she added with a wink.

The gloved hand caught my glans between a forefinger and thumb, rolling it back and forth for inspection.

“WHAT A RIPE RED CHERRY,” she murmured, giving my glans a squeeze. “DON'T GET TOO EXCITED; YOU’LL POP!”

The vet fussed over the yipping occupants of the other enclosures – which I now realized were pet carry cages. Disturbingly, she used the same cheerful cooing voice to them as she did me. The animals mercifully settled down again after she left the room to attend to other work.

Sometime later, she returned, striding right up in front of my cage.

“SOMEONE’S LOOKING FOR YOU, MISTER CUPCAKE,” she sang, as her hand grasped the top of the cage, where there must have been a handle, sliding the box out, and then it was floating through the room at her side, the white clinic walls swaying past jauntily with her strides.

The hallway ended as the clinic lobby expanded around outside the bars, then the box rose like an elevator and clunked onto the surface of a long reception desk.

Jen appeared on the other side of the barred door, bowing down and peering in at me with concern. Seeing that I was conscious she gave me a small smile.

“HE’S A LITTLE FUZZY RIGHT NOW BECAUSE OF THE PAIN RELIEF,” the vet was saying, “AND I STARTED HIM ON A COURSE OF ANTIBIOTICS. HE’S GOT A FEW STITCHES DOWN THERE SO HOLD BACK ON THE BELLY RUBS, BUT THEY’LL KNIT RIGHT UP ON THEIR OWN. AND THE BACK PASSAGE AND THE CHUBBY LITTLE BUNDLE AT THE FRONT MIGHT BE A TINY BIT TENDER. BUT APART FROM THAT,” the cage walls thumped as her hand gave the roof an enthusiastic slap, “HE’S A HARDY, FIT LI’L FELLA AND I THINK HE’S ALL GOOD TO GO!”

Back home, the pet crate came down on the living room sofa. The barred wire door swung open and I took numb, wobbly steps out onto the seat while Jen put the cage away. Each step caused a lance of pain up my anus and deep into my stomach, so I began to gingerly lower myself down into a sitting position as she came back into the room. Crouching down by the sofa, she slid her fingertips under my jaw and delicately tilted my head up to examine my face, look into my eyes, then, satisfied, pressed a kiss against the top of my head.

Noticing her athletic wear, I asked:

“What did you do while I was at the vet?” My sense of time was shot, since a chunk of hours had jumped ahead while I was under sedation. It was now midday.

"I WENT JOGGING,” she shrugged, looking away, “HAD A SHOWER. HAD A LATTE, GOOGLED SOME WEDDING DRESSES. IF YOU HAVE AN OPINION, I MADE A LIST OF DESIGNERS."

"While I was in surgery,” I confirmed, “hovering between life and death, you were looking at wedding dresses...?"

"OH, SHUSH. I DIDN'T PUT AN ORDER DOWN. JUST GETTING A VISUAL, FIGURING OUT A PRICE POINT."

"I can't believe you..."

“OH, AND I TOLD CHRISTINE ABOUT YESTERDAY. SHE’S GOING TO BE MY MAID OF HONOR.”

"Please don't tell me you told Christine about this..."

"OF COURSE. SHE'S BACK IN MY LIFE NOW SO WE TALK A LITTLE. AND YOU'RE BACK IN MY LIFE SO I TALK ABOUT YOU."

"Uggghhh. I need another hit of something. Do we have any ibuprofen…?”

“ENOUGH MEDS!,” she cautioned, after bringing me a plastic shot cup filled with water from the kitchen, “YOU’RE DOPED UP ENOUGH. YOU CAN BARELY SIT STRAIGHT.”

She tilted the cup as I took a couple of small sips, not drinking too much; worried about filling up my carved up stomach. The cup was put aside on the coffee table as I burped and then collapsed forwards in a wince as it elicited a small spasm of pain in my gut. She just chuckled and there was a sharp trace of vanilla as she brushed her thumb over my lips to wipe my mouth.

Pausing to examine me for a moment, she said:

“PERMISSION TO CUDDLE, PILOT?”

I sighed.

“Granted. But don’t touch my stomach.”

“LIKE THIS—?”

Lightning fast, she gave my belly a light tap with her fingernail, triggering a tiny stab of pain in my gut. I hugged my arms around myself in defence.

“Argh – Yes! Don’t do that!”

She did it again.

“Don’t – Stop it.”

I swatted my arms at the nail as it returned, but it successfully darted around my arms and pushed against my stomach lightly.

“Gah! That hurts! Knock it off.”

The nail was coming back.

“Permission denied. No cuddling.”

The nail curled up and withdrew again.

“OKAY. NO MORE.”

Standing, she kicked her sneakers aside and pulled off her running jacket, leaving an athletic crop top that left her stomach exposed.

Cupped hands positioned themselves down on the seat in front of me, I crawled unsteadily onto the velvety soft, vanilla-scented palms, moving slowly so I didn’t ignite pain in my belly. Then she dropped onto the sofa, reclining against propped up pillows and placing me onto her abdominal wall, forming a natural mattress.

I collapsed onto my side as her fingertips curled over my shoulder and began to massage, taking care to avoid my tender stomach while she checked her phone with her other hand. Her stomach expanded against my cheek in gentle, rhythmic waves as she inhaled, and below the wall of muscle, emitting faint gurgles.

“THIS MORNING,” she said, sounding chastened, “I DIDN’T REALIZE YOU WERE DOWN THERE.”

“I know,” I mumbled.

“FORGIVE ME?”

“It was an accident. There’s nothing to forgive.”

Her stroking fingers paused, she seemed to be in thought. Then she went on:

“I DON’T KNOW IF YOU ARE AWARE, BUT,” her voice lowered as if to let me in on a secret: “WHILE YOUR LEGS WERE STICKING OUT, YOUR COCK WAS PUSHING UP INTO MY CLIT, AND IT WAS ACTUALLY KIND OF BEAUTIFUL: YOU WERE CUPPING ME, YOUR COCK WAS THE BIG SPOON, AND I WAS MAKING YOU THROB LIKE CRAZY. IT FELT SO GOOD THAT I…MAY HAVE TRIED TO KEEP YOU IN THERE A LITTLE LONGER THAN I…PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE…”

Her voice trailed off, awaiting my response. I listened patiently and understood everything she said, but it made little impact; my senses were dulled from the drugs. Lacking words, I gave a dry, resigned laugh.

She hesitated as if not sure how to interpret this. With her fingertips resting on my shoulder, her thumb curled over my head and began tousling my hair.

“HEY…” she declared, “I REALLY LOVE YOU. I COULD JUST EAT YOU UP LIKE DESSERT.”

“I love you more.”

A forefinger and thumb gave my head a soft, grateful squeeze.

“I ALREADY KNOW THAT. I RECALL THAT YOU ATE ME UP A NUMBER OF TIMES LAST NIGHT. MOST EXCELLENT STUFF BY THE WAY.”

She was on her phone then for a little while, letting me rest. I was asleep almost as soon as my eyelids closed. Suddenly it was a little later, her voice rumbled back into my awareness, a finger tapping my shoulder to get my attention.

“OH, I WAS GOING TO TELL YOU,” she was saying, “A GUY CALLED ME; SOUNDED LIKE HE WANTED TO MEET UP WITH YOU.”

“Did he say why?” I muttered, voice hoarse from napping.  

“JUST THAT HE WAS FROM A FILM AGENCY OR SOMETHING.”

My eyelids cracked open and I blinked.

“Oh…” I said, with realization. Sounded like another media outfit looking to shoot another interview.

“So he wants to visit us?”

“I DON’T THINK SO,” she said slowly. “HE WANTS TO MEET YOU IN TOWN FOR A DRINK.”

Well, that sounded less confronting than a ready camera crew knocking at the door.

“Did he say where or when?”

“HE ACTUALLY CALLED EARLIER IN THE WEEK, BUT WITH EVERYTHING GOING ON I’VE SORTA BEEN BLOWING HIM OFF. BUT IF YOU’RE INTERESTED, I’LL GIVE HIM A CALL BACK AND SEE IF WE CAN SET SOMETHING UP.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Maybe I’m crazy but I think I want to.”

Compared to the nerve-wracking meeting with Jasper at insect size, a meeting with someone – potentially anyone else – at mouse size seemed like nothing.

She began to scroll through her phone, looking for the guy’s details.

“WHAT IF I COME WITH?” she said. “FOR SUPPORT. I MEAN, WE’RE TOGETHER NOW, SO WE DO THINGS TOGETHER.”

“I don’t see why not,” I said, feeling a small surge of brightness through the haze of the anesthesia and fatigue. I nuzzled against her belly, closing my eyes again. “Thanks, babe.”

A thumbpad slid over the nape of my neck to the crown of my head and rested there, applying faint downward pressure that was unmistakably possessive, but also warm and somehow relaxing, lulling me into sleep again.

“I GOT YOU, LITTLE MAN.”